How to overcome your fears in sales
How to overcome your fears in sales
Sales can be scary, especially when you are new to doing it. Whether you are are first-time founder trying to land your first customers, a solopreneur hustling for business or simply just starting your career in a junior sales role, there are 3 common fears that you are likely experiencing:
Fear of rejection
Fear of asking for money
Fear of not making money
The good news is there are proven solutions for overcoming each of them.
1. Overcoming the fear of rejection
Nobody likes hearing “no”. It’s hard not to take it personally. But in sales you always hear “no” way more often than “yes” because getting people to part with money is one of the hardest things to do in life.
The reason buyers reject sellers is often out of their own fear of making the wrong decision. After all, they don’t want to get dinged by their boss. Once you realize that buyers are just as nervous as you are, you can fundamentally change your approach.
Instead of wasting your energy trying to convince someone to say “yes”, focus on identifying their fears and helping them overcome them. The best way to do this is to get them to say “no”, as it usually means you’ve found something they are concerned (aka scared) about, which opens the door for you to ask, “why?”. For more on this check out my post on how to overcome buyer objections.
2. Overcoming the fear of asking for money
For many people, asking for money can feel super awkward. The root of this is making the ask in the context of your own self-worth. When you’re new to sales, its easy to project a lack of confidence in your own self-worth when asking for the sale. You see this all the time when salespeople tell you the price and then immediately start talking about how to discount it.
The solution is to detach the ask for money from yourself and instead attach it to the outcome your customer is looking for. For example, if you are in a services business, sell the deliverable (the outcome) instead of your hourly rate (your literal self-worth). Similarly, if you are in a product business, use insights and market data to help your buyer see that your price is not only reasonable, its logical.
At the end of the day, business is about making money, so asking for money is totally normal!
Overcoming the fear of not making money
99.99% of sales jobs have some form of variable compensation tied to hitting goals, which can create very real fear of not making enough money if goals are missed. While you can mitigate this to some extent by managing your personal finances and living on your base salary, you can also maximize your earning potential by building a plan to get to your goal.
For example, if you need to sell $100k/quarter and your average customer spends $25k, you are going to need 4 wins to get to goal. To get those 4 wins you are probably going to need to discovery calls with 20 prospects. To have those 20 discovery calls, you are going to need to reach out to maybe 100 prospects. Identifying those prospects and making time every day to do your outreach activity will create a habit that ensures that you are always building pipeline for the future. For more on this check out my earlier post on how to build a high converting prospecting process.
Lastly, don’t forget to ask your manager for help in building your plan. If your manager also has variable compensation (which 99.99% of sales management jobs do), they need you to get to your goal in order for them to get to their goal, so your incentives are very much aligned!
You got this!
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